


Books in Boxes

by glitsune



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Enemies to Lovers, Eye in the Sky, M/M, Mile High Club, Rivals to Lovers, Semi-Public Sex, Trans Gerard Keay, Trans Male Character, or at least any contradictions are consistent with canon levels, that's the gerry and mike ship name and I'm sticking to it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-15 05:08:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29183793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glitsune/pseuds/glitsune
Summary: Mike and Gerard meet a few times over the years as book buying rivals while hunting for Leitners, but when Gerard follows Mike onto a plane with the intention of killing him, things get a little more complicated.Or: joining the Mile High Club is the perfect sexual encounter for an avatar of the Vast and a man touched by the Eye.
Relationships: Michael "Mike" Crew/Gerard Keay
Comments: 3
Kudos: 33





	Books in Boxes

_note: gerry is trans and uses "cock" and "cunt" to refer to his junk in this story, ty for reading_

** 

It was early in both of their stories when they crossed paths for the first time, both of them already marked of course but neither of them fully who they would later become. Back in those days, Gerard looked for Leitners for his mother’s sake, an attempt to win her approval or at the very least her attention, although he was already starting to resent it. Resent his mother, resent the books, resent the powers that tugged and twisted. 

But he still did it, because he didn’t see what else he could do. He spent a lot of time in bookshops, all over the place, mostly chasing leads that he found on forums. That was how he had found his way here, in this shitty little shop. The woman behind the counter looked nervous, and jumped when the bell rang, and when he went over and asked about the book he’d heard was here, she looked like she was either going to cry with relief or claw his eyes out. Furtively, she placed it on the counter, a battered little thing with yellowing pages and the name Slaughterhouse Five, although it didn’t resemble any edition of the actual book Gerard had ever seen. 

After he’d paid for the book with a chunk of loose banknotes, he left with it safely in a ziploc bag in his backpack. He didn’t like to hold the books too closely. He didn’t pay too much attention to the short man who passed him as he left, although five minutes later as he was on his way to the train station, the same man came racing down the street after him. Not much older than him, but smaller, slighter. 

“I need that book,” had been what he said, and that was when Gerard noticed the lightning scar on his neck, exposed where the scarf he was wearing was loose and flapping about his throat in the wind. 

“Tough,” Gerard snapped, little shit that he’d been back then, and he had a penknife in his pocket which made him feel a bit safer. 

Looking back on it, he was probably very lucky that Mike hadn’t yet got the power that he would later obtain from the Vast. They were on a more even playing field then, maybe tipped a little in Gerard’s favour, since the book in his backpack with the power of violence may have been lending him some of that aggression. He couldn’t quite be sure. 

“I’ve got money,” the man said “I’ll buy it…”

Gerard scowled. He remembered that he was quite offended by that, at the time, as though this man thought he was poor enough that he could be bought so easily. 

“Piss off.” he snarled, backing off with his eyes fixed on this strange short man “I’m not interested.” 

There must have been something in his look that made Mike back off, because he didn’t follow. Not yet.

He might have forgotten the man altogether if that was the end of it.

The next time was at an auction in York. His mother had sent him specifically this time, this had been back when she was alive. Fully alive, he meant. He had been to enough auctions with her that he knew what to do, and was confident enough that he could ignore the posh tweed wearing fools who tutted and glared at him, there in his ripped black t-shirt and chipped painted nails. 

Then he saw the man, a few seats down, and he frowned, trying to place where he had seen him, before he saw the scar on his neck and it clicked into place. At the same time, the man looked over at him, and he saw the same expression of dawning recognition on his face, and then determination. 

The book was Sidereus Nuncius, a book on astronomy, and although it would be worth a great deal if it was old enough, the auction catalogue had made it clear that there was no way of authenticating if it was an original. Which usually meant they thought it was a fake but didn’t want to say so outright. That was fine, though, Leitners didn’t have to be authentic ancient texts to still have power, and it should put off some of the other bidders. 

Not that it would put off this other man. He knew that. He knew right away that his man was here for the same book that he was, and that he was in for a fight. 

Maybe because he was just here on a job for his mother, he was finding himself more interested in the idea of winning the battle he knew was coming rather than the idea of winning the book itself. They sat in silence, watching other rare books come up and the crowd bidding, the auctioneer moving through the long list of goods with clipped, business-like rhythm, occasionally pausing to congratulate bidders after a particularly drawn out run. Both of them knew the list and schedule, and tension seemed to mount as they got closer to the item they were after. 

“Lot 151 is Sidereus Nuncius by Galileo, uncertain provenance. Shall we start at £5000?”

There was a flurry of bids, as was to be expected, as people were willing to take a risk for the slight possibility that it might be an old edition. Gerard usually might have waited until the bids got serious before jumping in, but he felt a thrill of impatience in his chest, and raised his hand to signal interest. He looked across at the man, not surprised to see him also with his hand up, and also not surprised to see him looking right over at Gerard. 

After a while, as the price crept higher and higher, bidders dropped out. Until, in a bored tone, the strange short man called aloud:

“20,000.”

At that, every other person in the place fell silent, hands lowering, clearly well beyond what they were willing to pay. Other than Gerard, of course, who felt his stomach flip as though he was on a rollercoaster as his eyes met those of the man he would later learn was called Michael Crew. His hand stayed firmly in the air, silver rings around fingers that he… no, he hadn’t had the tattoos of the eyes on his fingers at that point, had he? 

Things moved faster now it was just the two of them. The price raised by the thousand. 21. 22. 25. Neither of them were looking at the auctioneer, eyes fixed on each other. 28. 30,000. 

Now, Gerard was starting to get a little nervous. So far, when hunting Leitners, he had always come away with his prize. Money had not been an issue. It shouldn’t have been here, wouldn’t have been a problem if there wasn’t a man who wanted the same thing as he did. But they were fast approaching the maximum amount of money he had with him, and he hadn’t seen the other man waver. In fact, he was smiling, and the more his eyes stared into Gerard, the more he felt as though he was standing at the top of a very steep staircase, wobbling, in danger of falling. 

35,000. £40,000. Gerard drew in a shaky breath, trying to seem unconcerned, lowering his hand. He refused to lower his gaze, giving his opponent a curt nod and barely listening as the auctioneer announced the win. 

He didn’t have any interest in waiting for the end of the auction, not caring if it was rude that he got up and headed for the exit. His blood was pounding in his ears, not totally sure what he was feeling. Concern that he wouldn’t be bringing this book back to his angry mother? Maybe. Anger that he hadn’t won out and had consequently been shown up? He wasn’t sure. He just knew he had to get out of there. 

That was one of the last times he had been looking for a Leitner without the intention of burning it. That was one of the last days before his mother died, and bound herself to a book before returning to control him, somehow, even more than ever before. 

In the meantime, he had been getting stronger. It wasn’t as though he ever had a ritual initiation, pledging himself to the Ceaseless Watcher, or anything like that. But, well, he sort of made his intentions clear, didn’t he? He hated them all of course, but if he had to choose… it was the least of the evils, it seemed like. And in return… he occasionally seemed to Know things. Just sometimes, very rarely and unpredictably, just a little nudge in the right direction. Which was what led him to Lions Street Books. 

At first he thought that there had been a mistake, when he asked the man who owned the shop if there had been anything with the name Leitner in the cover and he shook his head. 

“Not for years,” he muttered “Not since Michael Crew stole my copy of Ex Altiora.”

“What?” 

Of course, the name hadn’t meant anything to him at that point. But then:

“A strange book. A Leitner, as you say. It always seemed to… well, that doesn’t matter. I had a regular customer who took it: it was all rather odd, before he… disappeared.”

Was it the Eye or was it just a hunch? But he had a strange feeling that he knew exactly who the bookseller was talking about.

“What did he look like?”

“Well, it was a long time ago. But I know he was short, and thin. Oh, and he had this scar…”

“...that looked like lightning, on his neck?”

The man gave him a strange look, and nodded. Gerard frowned, not quite knowing what this meant, but sure that it must mean something.

“Okay. Tell me about what this Leitner did.”

As he left the shop a good ten minutes later, he felt as though his priorities had shifted slightly. Previously he had been hoping to collect as many Leitners as he could, and destroy them. Now, he felt he had a specific target, and he didn’t know if he wanted to destroy the book or Michael Crew or both. But it felt like a goal he could aim for. 

It took him a long time before he was even close. In that time he had killed other people, other agents of the dark powers. He had been surprised at how easy he found it when he was… well, not like them. He wasn’t a monster, and he had no intention of becoming one. Not that kind of monster, anyway, but he occasionally thought about how little he hesitated when he, say, plunged the blade into Diego Molina’s throat, and surely he must have lost a little of his humanity along the way. Still, he had been raised by a monster, surrounded by them all his life, so was it really so surprising? At least now he was doing the kind of monstrous things he wanted to do, and not just what his mother wanted him to.

It was actually through fighting the Lightless Flame that he found out his first solid lead on Mike Crew, and he booked a train ticket right then, leaving as soon as his mother was once again absent. He had spent several sleepless nights working on tracking the man down, laptop screen burned into his vision as he used all of the unscrupulous means he’d used to find Leitners over the years. And after all, if Mike really had absorbed the power of the book Ex Altiora and possibly others, what was he really but one of those damn books in human form? 

He’d found that Mike was going to be on a certain flight and so he assumed that this meant the man was going to do some kind of bullshit to the Vast up there in the air. The aim had been to catch him at the airport, stop him getting on that plane, but everything started to go wrong when his connecting train was delayed and by the time he got to the airport the plane was already boarding. He swore rapidly under his breath, wishing his mother had cleared off back to her sodding book earlier so that he’d had more of a head start, but here it seemed like Mike was already on the fucking plane and he was going to have to just buy a ticket, keep an eye on him, and jump him if he started with any bullshit. It was a shitty situation all round because he couldn’t exactly sneak a weapon onto a plane, and he didn’t think it was a good idea to start a fight out of nowhere either. Hopefully he was wrong and Mike was just travelling to France for a holiday, or planned on doing whatever it was when he got there, and Gerard could just nab him when they touched down. 

So here he was, no luggage, dropping himself angrily into a tight seat on a budget airline, scanning surreptitiously around for his quarry. He was almost beginning to panic, thinking the man wasn’t even on this plane, when he spotted him in a window seat several aisles back. Quickly, he looked away, sinking back into his chair and trying to angle himself so that he could look in the reflection of the window nearest him, to keep an eye on Mike without having to lean right round on the chair. The person in the seat next to him cleared their throat, pointedly, some businessman in a fucking ugly beige suit, and Gerard glared back, not having the energy to deal with some normie with a stick up their arse right now. 

“Excuse me,” came a familiar voice from the end of the short row of seats, and of course, Mike had seen him. 

He stared, not totally sure of his next move, while Mike leaned in to murmur something to the businessman, who practically leapt out of his seat. Mike must have offered to switch seats because a moment later he had sat down beside Gerard. Of course, Gerard thought, not even being able to sum up the energy to be bitter about it, of course that kind of man would much rather sit in a nice quiet window seat instead of next to a mad goth. 

“You’re a shit spy,” Mike said, with an affable sort of smile “I thought the whole point wasn’t to stand out. Could see you the second you came on board.” 

Fair point, Gerard supposed, looking down at his black ripped skinny jeans, his painted nails, his jewellery.

“Yeah, well. None of this was exactly as planned.”

“I guessed as much. You know, I could kill you in a second, now. I have that power.” 

Gerard looked at him. Mike stared right back, and there was something in his eyes that Gerard couldn’t quite place. Confusion, maybe. Maybe Mike wasn’t sure why he hadn’t killed him either. Interesting. 

“I heard. Ex Altiora. You’re a Sky Guy now, then?” 

“And you’re an Eye Guy,” Mike nodded to the tattooed eyes that adorned every one of Gerard’s knuckle joints.

Gerard shrugged: “It’s complicated.” 

He didn’t know why he felt the urge to deny any power. Reflex he supposed. Even if the sensible thing would be to claim all of the Beholding’s favour, that a single hair hurt on his head would cause Mike to go up in smoke, or whatever. 

“Isn’t it always.”

“What happened with that other book, Sidereus Nuncius was it?”

“Oh, that? Didn’t feel right. I guess I thought once I’d bound myself to the Vast, any other Leitner touched by that same power would make me stronger. Doesn’t work like that, it turns out. That’s alright, I’m good with the one I’ve got.”

“Hmm,” Gerard considered that, and supposed it made sense, since almost every Leitner he’d heard of seemed to do something different no matter which power they were linked to. 

“I’m guessing you’re not just following me to try and get the books back though, am I right?”

Mike’s tone was still light, but they hadn’t broken eye contact yet. Gerard took the opportunity to look him over. He didn’t seem to have aged in all the years since they had met. Maybe he just had a baby face, or more likely that was the power of pledging yourself to a god who you fed through tossing people off buildings. Gerard knew that he himself looked his age, or more, given the number of sleepless nights and cigarettes. 

“Would you believe this is all a coincidence.”

Mike laughed: “No, probably not.”

“Yeah, fair enough. I was going to kill you. I guess that’s what I do, some of the time. I find Leitners and destroy them, and sometimes the people they’re attached to.”

“Does it help that I don’t have any of the books anymore? I don’t even need Ex Altiora with me these days.”

“I’m not sure. Do you kill people, for the Vast?”

“Sometimes.”

“That’s… not great. Seems like the kind of thing I’d usually kill people for.” 

“Sure. I guess you can try, if you like. Though then I’d probably have to kill you, and I’d be a little sad to see you die. We’re friends, sort of.”

“I mean, sort of. If you think friends are people you fight with over evil books every few years.”

“Honestly it’s about as close as I come.”

Gerard supposed that was probably true of him as well, and wasn’t that depressing? That his current closest relationships were with a controlling undead mother who had ruined his life right from the start and a man who he still sort of planned on killing, if he got the chance, and if that man didn’t kill him first? 

“Were you going to kill somebody here?” 

Mike glanced casually around the plane, as though sizing the passengers up to be thrown out into the open air. 

“I hadn’t decided yet,” he said softly, eyes still on Gerard “If you ask me not to, I won’t.”

That was unexpected. It was a little annoying, as well. Was he expected to beg Mike to what, not commit murder? It irritated him how charismatic this man was, how his resolve faltered more every moment, how he genuinely couldn’t tell if he liked or hated him.    
  
“Okay,” he said after a moment “Then don’t.”

“Well, alright then,” Mike said, and winked at him “Since it’s you.” 

Ugh, now Gerard actually just hated himself for finding this charming. Still, if the game they were playing was just being a cocky little shit… well, he had a lifetime of practice at that. 

“Then I guess we’re both having a wasted trip. Although it’s probably about time we met properly, right? It’s good to finally meet you, Michael Crew.” 

“Mike, please,” Mike corrected, and smiled “Likewise, Gerard Keay.”

Ah, that was interesting. Gerard suspected that Mike had done some research into him just as he had done his own. He also knew full well that the amount of information about him that was out there was… kind of damning. Should he tell Mike that he hadn’t actually killed and skinned his own mother? He found that he really didn’t want to, not because he particularly wanted Mike to think that of him but purely because he actually really did not want to talk about or even think about his mother right now. 

Instead, he had the sudden urge to reply with ‘call me Gerry’, but he bit that back. Offering more vulnerability right now didn’t seem like the safest move. 

Since he stayed quiet, Mike kept talking: “Anyway, this seems like the perfect setting for our first date, don’t you think?” 

“For you, maybe,” Gerry ignored the heat in his stomach “This is your territory.”

“Yeah?” Mike put his hand on Gerard’s knee, casual, but heavy with intent “Up in the air, sure, that’s my domain. But surrounded by people, looking at us… well, you’re aligned with the Eye. That seems like something you might be into.”

Gerard opened his mouth, about to argue that actually he didn’t particularly like being the centre of attention, automatically defensive because he’d definitely been told before that he dressed like he did because he wanted to be looked at. But then the image came into his mind of Mike touching him more, here where people could see them, and he automatically clenched his thighs even tighter together, feeling himself throb and knowing, just knowing, how wet he must be right now. Well, fuck.    
  
“Maybe,” he tried to sound casual “Though maybe that’s just what I’m into. Nothing to do with the Beholding.”    
  
Mike laughed, sliding a couple of fingers into one of the holes in Gerard’s jeans, touching the bare flesh of his thigh underneath.    
  
“Either way,” he murmured “A lot of religions have sexual rituals for their gods. I’ve often wondered how the Powers would react to an offering of sex rather than death.”    
  
“Are you saying you won’t kill people if I fuck you?”   
  
The hand stilled on his thigh. 

“No, no,” Mike said quickly “I said I wouldn’t kill anybody here and I meant it. No conditions. No pressure. But…. I _do_ want to fuck you.”    
  
“For your god?”

“And for me.”    
  
“Well,” Gerard put his hand over Mike’s and squeezed, making his fingers dig harder into his soft inner thigh “Well, I think there’s laws against fucking right here on the seat. But I think people usually do it in the bathroom.”    
  
“You go first. I’ll follow in a minute.” 

As he walked from his seat to the bathroom, he felt as though everybody on the plane was watching him, knowing exactly what their plan is. He wondered exactly what it was that he was doing, struck by the ridiculousness of it all. After all, he had been following Mike with the intention of killing him, and now he’d been talked into joining the mile high club with the man? 

But Mike had been… different to how he’d expected. More human. He still wasn’t sure if he liked him, which didn’t seem great when he was fully prepared to have sex with him. But he still wanted to. God, he wanted to. 

Standing in the small aeroplane bathroom, the wait was still hard even if he was pretty sure Mike would follow. After all, where else could he go? Although, he was an avatar of the Vast. Maybe he could jump out of a window and float gently to the ground. Gerard didn’t know exactly how all of that worked.    
  
But he wasn’t waiting for long. That was kind of flattering. He would have thought Mike would wait for a while, to tease him, to leave him desperate and wanting… and wondering. That was the sort of thing he might have done himself. Instead he was surprised by Mike opening the door and closing it behind him, squeezing into the small space and pressing in even closer than necessarily, hands immediately on Gerard’s hips to pin him against the tiny plastic sink. 

This close, their difference in height was even more clear. Mike was at least a head shorter than Gerard, but he didn’t seem concerned by it, tangling a hand in Gerard’s hair to pull his face down to him, kissing him fiercely. Gerard kissed him back, mouth open, flicking his tongue piercing up behind Mike’s teeth and smiling as the other man growled and gripped him harder. In return, Mike shoved a thigh between his legs, grinding up against him, and grinning as Gerard gasped against his lips.   
  
They couldn’t take too much time. People would notice. They might have already. Gerard’s mind wandered to the man from earlier, that judgemental man in the suit, imagining his scandalised expression if he knew what was going on in here. Instead of feeling mortified at the idea, he felt as though electricity was singing through his nerves, and he fumbled at his jeans, pulling them open. He had to lean all his weight against the sink unit to shimmy them down, knowing it was pointless to try and take them off altogether, since his boots were too chunky to take them over the top and there was no time to take off those. Besides… he quite liked the idea of being mostly dressed, just enough for access, to be urgently used. He couldn’t believe Mike had so confidently called him an exhibitionist, but yeah, he was absolutely right.    
  
Mike had leaned back to give him room, taking the opportunity to unzip himself, not even bothering to take his own pants down further, and Gerard watched him palm himself through his underwear, reaching for him before he had fully realised what he was doing. Enthusiastically, Mike pressed against him again, a hand slipping between them to slide down the front of Gerard’s boxers. 

“Is this for me?” he said against Gerard’s throat, nipping the soft flesh there as he explored Gerard’s soaking wet cunt with his fingers, tugging gently on the piercing that decorated one of his labia. 

Oh fuck yes, please, it’s all for you. That’s what he wanted to say. But he wouldn’t, couldn’t. 

“For the next few minutes,” he said instead, determined not to be fully exposed as a desperate bottom as well, refusing to just moan and beg.   
  
He wiggled his own hand to mirror Mike’s own position, down past the waistband and wrapping his tattooed fingers around the hard cock he found there, straightening and positioning it, pointing the head towards him, grinding it against Mike’s own hand down his pants. Understanding his meaning, Mike moved his hand only to spread Gerard more open, exposing his sensitive little cock. Hungrily, Gerard ground the head of Mike’s cock against his own, only the two layers of thin material in between them, both slick. He heard Mike curse through gritted teeth, and smiled. 

“Turn around,” Mike said, though it sounded less like a command and more of a plea, mouthing rough kisses over Gerard’s jaw.   
  
With a nod, Gerard gave his cock a last teasing squeeze and let go, managing to turn on the spot with some small amount of grace, even with his jeans around his ankles, even in this small space. He had barely time to settle himself against the sink before Mike had pulled down his boxers, hands palming his arse cheeks, thumbs slipping to spread his cunt open. A moment later he felt the nudge of hot soft skin, and then Mike was inside him, and Gerard felt as though he was in freefall.    
  
“Oh fuck,” he panted, gripping the edge of the sink and concentrating on staying upright.    
  
It wasn’t easy when Mike had tight hold of his hips, using them as handholds to pull himself, aiding his thrusts. He could feel Mike’s balls slap against his skin as he slammed in deep, and both of them grunted and gasped, though not loud enough to drown out the rhythmic slick pounding of flesh on flesh. 

At first he lost sense of where he was altogether, only needing to pay attention to Mike’s body against him, inside him. And then, as the small aeroplane bathroom came back into focus, he saw the walls melt away. The walls were gone. Gone, or invisible, as though they were in a glass box. He could see the people in their seats, mainly people who seemed to be travelling for work, many of them in suits. Types that he saw all the time in London, that looked down their nose at him, holding their briefcases, their copies of the Financial Times, their shiny leather shoes. They couldn’t see him, but he was sure that any moment one of them would look up, see him bent over the sink, being fucked by a man he barely knew.    
  
The thought of that made the heat spark within him and he leant hard on one arm so that he could reach with the other to rub desperately between his legs, grinding his fingertips against his cock. Mike pressed in closer, mouth close to Gerard’s ear. 

“I wish everybody on this plane could see what a hot little slut you are,” he murmured, punctuating his words with harder thrusts.

Gerard wondered if Mike saw what he saw, the invisible bathroom walls, the blank faces of the passengers. He moaned, lifting a leg and swivelling it to the side to rest his knee on the toilet seat, and bent further forwards, offering a different, deeper angle, and Mike eagerly took the hint, thrusting into him rough and rapid, so Gerard needed to grip harder to the side of the sink to keep his body still. His hair fell down over his face and he found himself imagining a crowd around them, quietly watching, their eyes on him. Maybe crowded in close enough that they could reach out and touch him if they wanted, and oh they would want to, but they couldn’t. 

“Look up,” Mike said, voice low, sweeping Gerard’s hair out of his face and holding it in a loose handful behind his head, tilting his head up to face the small mirror above the sink, and Gerard obediently looked at himself there. 

He saw his pale face flushed with pleasure, his eyeliner smudged across his face, his mouth slack, the way his eyes rolled back when Mike slammed into him. Oh fuck. He wasn’t particularly confident in his appearance, and he rarely thought of himself as handsome, but right now he looked fucking hot. He glanced at Mike’s reflection, the way his own eyes were fixed on Gerard’s face in the mirror, and that was even hotter, that Mike found him hot, wanted to look at him, wanted to see his face while he fucked him. He wanted to be seen. He wanted people to see how he looked while he got pounded, to think of him as a filthy sexy object, to want him, to feel conflicted and dirty by their desire for him. 

Behind him, Mike moaned, fingers digging into his hips, his thrusts becoming more uneven, and Gerard felt the plane suddenly drop into a pocket of turbulence, his stomach flipping with the sensation, but it didn’t stop, the plane bouncing and shaking around them, and he realised that the movement of the plane coincided with the strokes of Mike moving inside him. And then he felt as though he was falling, but not the sickening fear of plummeting through space, but the sensation of swooping upwards on a swing, the feeling of hurtling down a steep rollercoaster descent, and he gasped, burying his head on his arm to stifle the moan as he came, hard enough that he thought he really would fall, the feeling drawn out and intensified as he felt Mike’s cock pulsing inside him, felt Mike hold onto him, hold him up, fill him. 

Gerard really felt he might have blacked out for a second, his brain fully short-circuiting, overwhelmed by sensation. He gulped in air, aware that things no longer felt like they were falling, and also that the walls of the stall had reappeared. Interesting. Behind him, Mike withdrew, and they both fixed their clothes in silence, pausing for a brief, almost soft last kiss, before they left. 

It was impossible to tell if anybody had seen them return from the bathroom and put two and two together. If they did, they didn’t care, or were hiding it very well. Gerard sat back down in his seat, feeling dishevelled and well-fucked, although now he’d orgasmed he had less interest in anybody looking at him. He also felt a lot more awkward around Mike, but he did at least feel like probably they weren’t going to try to kill each other right now. That display of the Vast had confirmed that Mike was incredibly powerful, but he couldn’t pretend that he wasn’t fully aware of the Eye’s presence in that bathroom, even if he was still determined that he was still totally unaffiliated. Well, perhaps fucking an avatar of a rival Power did show that he wasn’t entirely faithful, but he’d not felt as though the Beholding had disapproved. 

Whatever all this meant, maybe he needed to make a new plan, one that wasn’t just about burning books. Maybe that wasn’t the whole answer, just a way to spite his mother rather than a way to make a difference. But fuck, he didn’t have to make any big life decisions right now. Maybe for a moment he could just enjoy the comedown, the connection, the sensation. Live life, for once.

Maybe he’d even give Mike Crew his number. Probably not. This probably wasn’t the sort of thing that should happen again. Right? No. He didn’t even like him. Not really. Ah fuck. Maybe he’d just got himself in a whole different kind of trouble.


End file.
